London's Mayor Promises London-Wide Wireless For 2012 Olympics 130
Pax681 writes "[London Mayor] Boris Johnson declared that London will have all bus stops and lamp posts Wi-Fi enabled by 2012 for the Olympics. In an article on Tech Eye, Boris waxes lyrical (or as lyrical as he can get) about how it would be done at a Google Zeitgeist event in Hertfordshire. These would be public Wi-Fi hotpots; as such, would these break the new law on open access points? Would they be just the thing for people to use to infringe with impunity and anonymously bypass the chances of running foul of the Digital Economy Act?"
Cash prize of £500 (Score:5, Funny)
For whoever can download the Al Queda Operators Manual while at the table next to the Mayor.
You may also get a congratulatory beating.
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if Dr.Who has taught us anything, it's that wireless transmissions are in fact aliens made of pink lightning that suck your faces off through the television. :. there must be an alien creature manipulating the timeline!
It's clear that this technology is Years beyond our current understanding of science,
Re:Cash prize of £500 (Score:5, Funny)
Have you SEEN Boris Johnson?
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Have you SEEN Boris Johnson?
Nah..Boris is human through and through.. His hair on the other hand....
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Maybe they're hoping the terrorists will be stupid enough to use it to plan the attack.
Someone needs to (Score:3, Interesting)
Has Boris thought.... (Score:3, Informative)
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Doesn't stop him being vaguely likable..
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rather, he is well mean!
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Re:Has Boris thought.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Has Boris thought.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Nah, you will probably still get beat by the Bobbies for having a camera in public. The only upside would be that you can stream the beating in realtime to UStream
Re:Has Boris thought.... (Score:5, Funny)
Mobile phone manufacturers are worried.
In the near future, to make a call in London you'll only need to say, in clear voice:
"I WISH TO CALL MY FRIEND MIKE"
And the nearest lamppost will set the call.
At first it will be a bit strange to speak to a lamppost and hear it reply in your friend's voice.
Re:Has Boris thought.... (Score:5, Funny)
You clearly have not seen the drunks in Middlesbrough Town Centre on a Fri..well..Fri-Thurs night - they sure as hell try.
Re:Has Boris thought.... (Score:5, Funny)
> At first it will be a bit strange to speak to a lamppost and hear it reply in your friend's voice.
I've been doing it for years. It's one of the wonders of ciderspace.
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Hmmm... loudspeakers are in place, mics are gonna be placed around town probably soon... the technology is in, we could as well use it for the people instead of against them for a change.
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That's one way to keep people from using the wireless for lewd things. London will be able to associate a face with every packet sent.
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Re:Has Boris thought.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Laws don't apply to government. "No open access hotspots" unless of course a politician does it.
Re:Has Boris thought.... (Score:4, Insightful)
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So the good news is that everyone has wireless. The bad news is that the only thing on the internet is sporting events and reruns of Bleak House.
Unless you buy the premium package.
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Laws don't apply to government. "No open access hotspots" unless of course a politician does it.
Or you could just think about it for five minutes and come to the conclusion that the contradictions could be resolved by not using open WiFi but instead using secured WiFi with a registration system so that any access to the system could be associated with a verified ID. Pretty straightforward really. Just show your passport or driver's license to someone at the airport, your hotel, or whatever the DMV is called in England, and they give you a WiFi login.
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Doesn't seem likely.
He also promised to get rid of Bendy Buses, improve rail and cycle services at no cost to the taxpayer (lolwut?) and (most likely) something about a badger in every pot.
I think we all know that he's an entertainer, not an executive, and was voted for on that basis.
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The Bendy Bus replacement: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8685486.stm [bbc.co.uk]
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Ye have only had those articulated "bendy" buses 8 years. Seems like a huge waste of money to just dump them. According to wikipedia: "Research by London TravelWatch has indicated that such a withdrawal could prove costly to TfL. A study conducted in September 2008 found that replacing articulated vehicles on routes 38, 507, and 521, whilst maintaining overall route capacity, would cost an additional £12.6 million per annum."
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http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/cycling/12444.aspx [tfl.gov.uk]
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Many of the bendy buses on the 521 route have gone already, replaced by ordinary single deckers. The extra capacity of the 521 wasn't much used on that route anyway.
Re:Has Boris thought.... (Score:5, Funny)
He also promised to get rid of Bendy Buses, improve rail and cycle services at no cost to the taxpayer (lolwut?) and (most likely) something about a badger in every pot.
Not being English, I read the above and guessed that a "bendy bus" was some sort of English desert. I was disappointed to learn that it has nothing in common with spotted dick, trifle, brakewell tart, or even a roly-poly, but rather it's just a frigging bus. Or more specifically, an articulated bus [wikipedia.org].
The badger reference I'm still working on.
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A bendy bus is something you find in in places like France, where the roads are much wider and can cope with them. In England they might work in places like Milton Keynes or Swindon, but not London.
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Re:Has Boris thought.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Has Boris thought.... (Score:5, Funny)
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I think from now on we should all vote based on the candidate's comedic value. The country will still be screwed, but at least we'll get some laughs.
That's how Bush got elected. But we misunderestimated his stategery.
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In other words, the giant douche was more visually appealing than the turd sandwich?
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In other words, the giant douche was more visually appealing than the turd sandwich?
Well, at least he wasn't a tub of lard [youtube.com].
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Help me here, please, what's wrong with the busses? I've been to London twice, and so far I can't say that I found anything wrong with their public transport. Well, aside of the price tag.
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They were brought in by Labour, so are automatically evil in the eyes of Boris and his paymasters.
They also annoy drivers of Chelsea Tractors (SUVs) because they are physically large articulated busses that require plenty of room and considerate driving from other motorists.
I thought they were pretty good - a huge improvement on the routemaster for space and access, and they were comfortable and quiet to ride.
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I was under the same impression. We have them too in my country, and nobody really complains about that. Granted, we also don't drive SUVs and our people treasure their cars enough that they keep their distance from our (quite reckless) bus drivers.
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Re:Has Boris thought.... (Score:5, Funny)
Help me here, please, what's wrong with the busses?
They don't fit in the streets very well. They are unreliable, spending roughly a quarter of their life in the workshop - assuming they haven't gone on fire. On a long, straight bit of road (not many of them on a typical London bus route) they return a stunning 3mpg! Thanks to their antiquated engine designs, they burn slightly less fuel and emit only slightly more unpleasant fumes when they're on fire than when they're on the road. The only way to get them above 1.5mpg on a normal route is to tow them with a recovery truck.
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On a long, straight bit of road (not many of them on a typical London bus route) they return a stunning 3mpg!
They must be quite archaic. A local manufacturer here started producing a (bending) bus model with approximately 6-7 mpg (inter-city traffic in winter, according to the first info from a local tech news site).
Re:Has Boris thought.... (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing wrong with London's public transport. The problem is very large vehicles in London (centre). The roads are generally too narrow, too bendy and have too many junctions for very long vehicles.
Many junctions have had their stop lines moved right back (20-30m from the junction) to allow the buses to turn into them. It's all too common for a car driver to be unable to see the point of stopping so far back so they stop a cars length or two in front of the line. Then one of these buses comes around the corner and everybody is stuck. (over the years this has got to be a lesser and lesser problem as more and more car drivers have directly experienced the problems it causes but it's never gone away completely)
Or when the buses are going along a main road with two lanes they should wait until their exit is clear before entering a box junction (yellow hatched area where you are not allowed to enter unless your exit is clear and are not allowed to stop on unless you are turning right and are prevented from oncoming traffic). But cars in the other lane will "overtake" the bus and then pull across into the buses lane meaning that the 18m gap that the bus needs in front of it never happens. So the buses just block the junctions. (and pedestrian crossing are blocked even more often - it's not at all uncommon for once of these buses to end up slap bang across a pedestrian crossing for the entire green man phase - which tends to be fairly short anyway even when you've got a direct route across the road)
These buses have a surprisingly brisk acceleration - and there is a significant proportion of bus drivers who will just pull away when there is a car or cyclist overtaking. Typically for a car it's not too much problem but many cyclists cannot then get past them but end up stranded in the middle of the road with a bus that is now going slightly faster than they are but has 15m of vehicle behind them preventing them from getting back in.
For the people who use them, these buses are very good. But, unfortunately, they do not work well on the road infrastructure in central London.
Tim.
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"stop lines moved right back (20-30m from the junction)"
"entering a box junction"
"entire green man phase"
I spy another Traffic Engineer.
He is a buffoon, who makes a million pounds (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone in England thinks he is a buffoon, who still somehow manages to earn a very high salary indeed as an editor, get his government pay and somehow won the election for Major from Ken Livingston (who himself was an outsider, a left wing socialist who ran against his own party candidate when right wing "labour" Tony Blair was still somewhat popular).
Search for "boris hignfy" on youtube, seriously funny stuff. The guy gets away with gaffs that people have torn Bush and Blair apart for. NO journalist even dares to jump on any slight mis pronunciation or botched fact Boris makes. It is BRILLIANT. He has given himself a license to say what he wants to say and not have to worry about weighing every word on a silver platter. Nobody will ruin his career because he "claimed to have invented the internet" or he mixed up the date the US declared independence.
Watch his appearances on the show and then realize he makes more money then you ever will.
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he mixed up the date the US declared independence.
I dunno, but to us Euros the date of American independence is not as important as for the US. Europe lost many colonies including Guinea-Boisseau.
We cannot keep track of every single colony running away...
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It seems to be a trend that we vote people into public offices that appear dumb or inept. Maybe the train of though is "he's just as much a douche as the other guy, but we might at least get a good laugh out of him once in a while".
He had a good head start in life (Score:2)
Easy to come out on top when you've been to Eton and Oxford, been a member of the same exclusive private drinking club as the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequor, and have nobility as your ancestors.
If social networking is as useful as it is supposed to be for getting you £250K jobs, this man is well connected...
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You get to be Mayor of London by being voted for by a majority of its population. Having gone to Eton and Oxford with David Cameron might be considered a liability in that situation.
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how many lamp-posts there are in London?
There's approximately 20,500 bus stops in Greater London - I have a database (NaPTAN) of them. I'd estimate there's as least 50 lamp posts for every bus stop. So, thats over 1,000,000 WiFI access points to be rolled out by 2012! Wow!
Re:Has Boris thought.... (Score:5, Funny)
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A right-wing buffoon wouldn't be providing public wi-fi, he'd be building them with public money and then giving them to private enterprise to charge the public to access what they already paid for. He's a left-wing buffoon.
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Not all officials are bad (Score:3, Insightful)
So, one branch of the government (central) is a bunch of nazi control freaks, and another (local) is reasonable?
But too bad, it's the central one who gets to issue laws, and sadly, in this case it looks like the local initiative will be ruled illegal.
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to be fair, the nazi control freak central government was kicked out at the election we had a fortnight ago. Give the new ones a chance - they'll have their faults for sure, but they won't be quite as control freak as the last lot. More nazi, perhaps.
Re:Not all officials are bad (Score:5, Informative)
>>>Give the new ones a chance - they'll have their faults for sure, but they won't be quite as control freak as the last lot.
That's what we said over here in the American Union, and yet the "new lot" happily renewed the Patriot Act rather than let it expire, and they just passed legislation to start collecting DNA
Re:Not all officials are bad (Score:4, Informative)
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That burns because you elected a liberal who is behaving like a Nazi. We elected the Conservatives (plus their little helpers) so we expect them to behave like Nazis and so aren't as shocked and upset by it.
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Why do people keep called the National Socialist German Workers Party (Natzis) conservatives? They were best buds with the 1920s Communists, who were leftists. The Nazis did eventually have a "family squabble" with the communists, but they were still leftists (supported strong central government) (and centralized markets).
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They weren't conservative however they, like most current "conservatives" in America, where right-wing as all fucking hell.
Conservative/Liberal and Left/Right are fairly orthogonal traits.
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I think you're confused about history - the Nazis were primarily recruited out of the Freikorps and found the socialists (SPD and leftwards) profoundly threatening to German society. They sold themselves to the German public as being the best hope against socialism. They never were "best buds" or even remotely friendly. Philosophically, the Nazis were reading Herder while the SDP were reading Voltaire (well, not exactly Voltaire, but you get the picture).
I don't think "liberal" or "conservative" apply very
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Any attempt to classify all political views along a simple left-right access will get some things badly wrong, because things just aren't that simple.
Here's one example of trying to open things up:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/ [politicalcompass.org]
although of course you can add as many dimensions as there are different things to hold political views about.
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They were best buds with the 1920s Communists, who were leftists. The Nazis did eventually have a "family squabble" with the communists
Freikorps - what later became the core of Nazi party, supplying it with most of rank-and-file - were vehement enemies of communists, in 1920 and beyond. Indeed, they were the ones who are primarily responsible for suppressing the communist revolution of 1918-19 in Germany!
As well, NSDAP before Hitler was very different (and extremely insignificant) compared to NSDAO under Hitler, and he was always strongly anti-communist (in his mind, marxism was a plot for jewish world domination).
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Why do people keep called the National Socialist German Workers Party (Natzis) conservatives?
Oh, and to answer the actual question: because a lot of their values were conservative, especially compared to liberalism (in all senses) of Weimar Germany, which was ahead of many european countries in that. This includes things such as family values.
Of course, for that, you'll have to understand that politics and political labels aren't all just about economic policies, and there is much more to them.
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Poppycock! (Score:2)
How long will Digital Britain last? (Score:5, Interesting)
Whether or not Cameron and the conservatives can splinter away from Murdoch enough to let this happen remains to be seen, but I am currently naive enough to be genuinely optimistic about the results of having liberals in power for the first time in over a century.
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Please note: anyone who seeks and obtains the power to tell others what to do is axiomatically not a liberal. While Clegg was off waffling about Freedom Acts and devolving power, Cameron was actually busy eviscerating the 1922 committee and centralising power to his cabal. Stalin in a cycle helmet.
Remember also that the real power in the land always was, and always will be, Sir Humphrey Appleby, GCB, KBE, MVO, MA (Oxon) [wikipedia.org].
So while Clegg blubbers FREEEEEDOM for the 6 months their coallition will hang tog
Re:How long will Digital Britain last? (Score:4, Interesting)
You don’t seem to know how politicians work:
1. Do a couple of speeches or something in front of whoever you want to take over.
2. “Promise” some things, anything, doesn’t matter if it’s even physically possible, let alone sensible, that those people really want.
3. Link whatever you (or rather your “shareholders”) want as a precondition to that promise.
4. Use the people to get that precondition trough in parliament.
5. Forget about the original “promise”.
6. Find a “scandal” (something those people really do not want) to get them to hate the opposition again, be distracted and forget about what you did.
7. Rinse, repeat.
Real professionals make up the things, that those people think they want, themselves. E.g. by inventing non-existing dangers with the use of their media outlets. This also makes it much easier to void the “promise”, since you don’t need to fix something that never existed in the first place. Your “promise” already was fulfilled from the start.
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If that was true, no public works project in the last 100 year would ever have gotten done.
Here is a clue: It's a little more complex then you think.
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Protip: It is generally assumed that a little half-joking “algorithm” does not describe the physics of a complex interaction dynamic in real life in every detail of its entirety. ;)
Re:How long will Digital Britain last? (Score:5, Funny)
If the alternative is your unsubstantiated pessimism then I'll probably stay here, thanks.
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And why the heck is your webcam still not on and streaming live pics?
So very typical. Using what's provided for free but not giving back to the community.
Re:How long will Digital Britain last? (Score:5, Funny)
The primary problem with naked people in Britain is that they're usually British people.
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I'm currently sitting in a park in London, using free wifi. It's 25C and there are very nearly naked people tanning themselves all around..
Dammit, when did the augmented reality technology make such advances? I must have missed something. Where do I buy the glasses?
Wireless London - a step forward? (Score:1)
I agree that wires can be dangerous to your health when you stumble over them, but are they really ready to run all systems from battery and recharge using induction?
Sorry, couldn't refuse...
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Also in the news, after promising WiFi net access, he followed up promising WiFi power.
Asked how he wants to do it he replied "Huh? Why not? My advisor told me there's other computer thingamajigs that are powered via their network, why shouldn't that work with the WiFi ... computer stuff?"
Telstra Australia had a similar plan (Score:1)
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In Sweden many Telia (old Televerket= state monopoly) phonebooths had wifi installed. You need an account to use them, so while it's "public" it's not like anyone can use them at any time for free. I have the service included in my iPhone plan (at a cost of 0 SEK), but I've never bothered to connect to one.
Monitoring use (Score:3, Insightful)
Would they be just the thing for people to use to infringe with impunity and anonymously bypass the chances of running foul of the Digital Economy Act?
Not necessarily... there are ways of having public WiFi without letting everyone use it anonymously. Singapore has pretty much full coverage, but to use the public hotspots you need to create an account, and your account has to be tied to a cell phone number (with a confirmation text that you have to respond to). Now I'm sure a clever person could find ways around the system, but it's still just another barrier. I wouldn't be suprised if London did something similar- from TFA:
Not only will this allow people walking the streets to access the wi-fi connections, but it will also allow local homes access too. This will most likely require some sort of payment, however, but may be significantly cheaper than current packages offered through internet service providers.
If it's going to be payment system, then there has to be some sort of personal account that people can create (and the ability to individually monitor people can then be spun as an added bonus).
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Interesting idea with the mobile phone thing. Are there any measures in place to stop people using pre-paid burner phones?
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Every lamp post to be a hot spot (Score:2)
And every phone box to be a TARDIS.
See you in the future Borya.
Better idea (Score:3, Funny)
Instead of investing money on this, they should have gotten better Olympic mascots. I mean, have you seen those weird assed things? What generic anime did they them out of? Wenlock and Mandeville, more like Angry and Creepy. They look like something you'd see pestering Scooby Doo.
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They're tonties [eyezmaze.com].
borris for prime minister (Score:2)
waxes lyrical? (Score:2)
Boris 'waxing lyrical' goes something like this:
Er, well, yes, you see it's about, oh she's locked me out, er, so yes, you see you can't, oh sorry I seem to have spilled, er, so as I was saying, yes, please could you pass me the, yes, it's all about how much, oh, this cloth is soaked, yes, it's about how much you can really, oh thank you, I'll just clean that up...
(etc).
In short, he's the ultimate politician: Talk lots, say nothing.
As for free wifi - well, one wonders how this is really going to work. When
Here is how to do it (Score:2)
1) Get your works people to design set up and instal wireless devices. Make it an access point with no hoops to jump through. Call it good.
Here is how NOT to do it:
Partner with smoen hoping to leverage it to make money through people connecting.
That is what royally screwed Portland wi-fi. They partenerd witha company that want to sell an addition tier of faster service, wanted you to jump through there website, and generally made it too hard for most people to get onto.
Thanks Matt Lamp for funking that up.
007 (Score:2)
"Free" London Wifi eh?
I am sure there will be no spying or monitoring, and that all privacy will be maintained. They certainly won't use that connection to infiltrate your computer to search for illegal files such as movies and music!
Though if they play the bond music every time you connect it might be worth it. That shit makes everything more exciting...
Boris is what is known as a national treasure.... (Score:3, Informative)
Boris is what is known as a national treasure in the UK. That is, someone whose utterances should be greeted with an amused smile of appreciation, but is sometimes, maybe a lot of the time, very much on target and right. But usually not conventionally right, right in a sort of coming out of left field way. Boris is as likely to be heard making comparisons to ancient history, complete with Latin or Greek quotations in the original, as to opine on Wifi. Don't take this stuff too seriously. On some things, like the subway, Boris will be crisp, matter of fact, to the point, and obviously correct when you think about it. On other things, like these here lamposts, all Londoners will know this is Boris being a national treasure, and smile indulgently. There is a code for when to take Boris seriously, which is most of the time, and when to take Boris as joking, which is some of the time, and when to take Boris as being a national treasure, as in the present instance. In this case all Londoners know that he is not to be taken all that seriously. There will be some wifi, and there will be some lamposts. But no, the whole of London will not be blanketed with open relays, and Boris, as soon as someone explains that to him, will see immediately that it is not on.
How you have to see Boris, he is Mayor Koch, but in London. That is, he is like Koch was a real New Yorker, Boris is a real Londoner. The code is different, but its the same animal. Like Koch, he will get elected over and over again. He's what the Londoners think of as one of us. Though, of course, he is not at all one of us in any real sense. But he is a real Londoner, and people look through differences of class and education, and see that. As they looked through Koch's differences from them and knew they were looking at a real New Yorker.
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I thought open WiFi was illegal in the EU?
Certainly not. There are several cities in EU with city-wide open WiFi, including Oulu in Finland (http://www.panoulu.net/ [panoulu.net]).
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Not the EU per se, but there has been a verdict (IIRC /. reported it) in Germany [securecomputing.net.au] where a person was convicted because he didn't seal his AP and it was used for copyright infringment.
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including Oulu in Finland
But are there any non-fictional places offering it?